Saturday, July 26, 2008

A friend recently remarked to me that her dealer was on home detention. That's nice. Wouldn't want to see people who are perpetrating victimless crimes locked up in prison. And the dealer has found a lucrative job he can do from home.

I was reminded of this tidbit by new figures for home detention. There has been a 60 percent increase in people serving such a sentence since judges were allowed to impose one.

In 2007-08, 2677 people were on home detention sentences or orders, up from 1672 on home detention orders in 2005-06, a 60 per cent increase.

It occurs to me this may largely be another (new) aspect of the state's farcical war on drugs. Still I would rather live in a country that puts up a show of fighting soft drugs than one that actually brings all it legal might down on the activity.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Oh Golly. This is exciting. When did a political party last have a policy to create "new, affordable" campsites? Thank you National. That's high on my list of priorities for something a government should be focusing on.

While on the subject of incapacity benefits, the United Kingdom has the same problem. Here is their proposal for reform. Don't get too excited;

Incapacity benefits

From October 2008, the Employment and Support Allowance will replace Incapacity Benefit and Income Support claimed on the grounds of incapacity for new customers. The new system will consider what an individual is capable of, and what help they need to manage their condition and return to work.

A new test, the Work Capability Assessment, will be introduced in October 2008 alongside the new Employment and Support Allowance and will be applied to all those people claiming the new allowance. The new test is more robust, accurate and fairer. It will replace the current Personal Capability Assessment, which is weighted more towards a person’s physical disability and bases itself around assessing people’s incapability for work.

The Work Capability Assessment will look at people’s physical and mental ability, including conditions such as learning disabilities and other similar conditions. It will assess what an individual can do - rather than can’t do. Individuals with health conditions or disabilities will be given support and employment advice to enable them to return to work where possible. People whose condition causes very severe limitation of their ability, who are not able to engage in any work-related activity, will get a higer rate of benefit. They will still be able to volunteer to get support and employment advice if they want to.

This measure is part of The Welfare Reform Act 2007.

Now contrast this to what New Zealand has been doing. Here's a release from over three years ago;

Trials of a new work-focussed service for all beneficiaries will begin in 12 locations across the country next month as part of the government's reform of the welfare system, Social Development and Employment Minister Steve Maharey said...

"Rather than categorising people on the basis of why they are unable to work, the service will focus on what support people need to help them move into work, regardless of their benefit type."

Not much changes, the numbers keep rising.

The UK is simply embarking on an elaborate relabelling process. Still, people wanting to hold onto their public service jobs (and consultants) have to be seen to be doing something.

Ah yes. Because there are 1,616 people on the DPB using the WINZ Clendon service centre. And the number has risen over the past 5 years. Where DPB populations are concentrated, social problems are most prevalent. On that basis I should be able to predict where the next offices will open. Try Mangere, Manurewa, Otara, Papakura, Waitakare and Manukau, if they haven't already got one.

It's the old story of some government intervention leads to more government intervention. In their attempts to meet need, they create it. There is a massive problem of children in need of better parenting. The majority of them will live in homes where nobody works and nobody teaches them constructive values. What a bind this country has got itself in.

The numbers on the invalid's benefit have increased by seven percent in the year to June 2008. In the previous year they had climbed 3 percent. The most common incapacity continues to be psychological or psychiatric conditions at 28.1 percent (up from 26.7 in 2004.)

Sickness benefit numbers dropped by 4 percent but the net gain over the two benefits was 4,000. The sickness benefit has the same most common complaint as the invalid's benefit with 39 percent (up from 35.1 in 2004) of claimants in this category.

As I have blogged before the DPB has stalled. No surprises there. In the year to June 2008 the total is down by ..... 27. I wonder how much by way have resources has gone into achieving that stunning result.

But I better mention the unemployment benefit, down by 5,000.

I calculate this to be an overall drop of 1,000 but the remaining factsheet - all main benefits - insists the drop is 3,000 so there must be some movement in the more minor benefits like widow's or emergency benefits.

DPB 96,440IB 82,879SB 46,271UB 17,710All main benefits 258,317

At this rate we are on track to return to the kind of numbers common in the sixties and seventies by 2087.

Can I be bothered blogging about National's housing policy? The most noteworthy aspect is its similarity to Labour's - again. They will return tenants right to purchase their state home but if this happens the state home stock will be replaced.

"We won't be running down the state housing stock. We acknowledge that we need it."

Mr Heatley said the party would now keep Labour's policy of fixing state house rents at only 25 per cent of the tenants' incomes except for tenants on high incomes.

He promised to keep the accommodation supplement.

He also promised to keep Labour's Housing Innovation Fund, which provides $12 million a year in capital for community groups providing shared-equity and other subsidised housing to low-income people.

What is the point of this election? The Dominion Post comments in its editorial today, on the matter of the closing poll gap between National and Labour,

What this poll and others taken around the same time do show is that there will not be a walkover. This is healthy. Democracy thrives on the contest of ideas, policies and personalities, not on forgone conclusions.

Except there is no contest of ideas. "What this poll" actually shows is that we are not living in a 'thriving' democracy. A thriving democracy would be one that is flourishing, prospering and growing rich. We are living in a tired, cynical, paralysed democracy that is deeply dissatisfied with the status quo but too scared to change it.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

I am one of the hundreds of thousands of parents who reluctantly acquiesced to the request that my children be given the meningococcal vaccine. It now emerges that the immunity is reasonably shortlived.

This is from an Economist article about how violent the UK has become, in which we get a mention.

England and Wales are not unusually murderous (see chart). The homicide rate is higher than anywhere in western Europe except Finland, Belgium and indeed France (though Britain edges ahead of France when Scotland and Northern Ireland are included). But Britain looks gentle next to former colonies such as Canada, New Zealand and especially America. And it compares favourably with the EU average, thanks to the new eastern European states: in Latvia and Lithuania homicide is five times as common as it is in Britain.

In 2004 New Zealand had 2.1 homicides per 100,000

(The only comparable NZ figure for attacks and threats I can find comes from 1992 at 5.7 per 100)

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Spent some of today minding the Farsite Gallery in Petone. They are currently showing works of Eastbourne artists, myself included, so we take turns sharing the minding at the weekends.To occupy myself I had some pastels at hand. However I had no suitable paper to draw on. But I found some brightish blue card in the storeroom and based the following sketch on a photo of Daisy. Passersby are often drawn in by someone working and they are also frequently pet owners out exercising their hounds. The result was a larger-than-life elongated landscape with lots of blue to the left (not caught on camera here.)

Comments policy

About Me

Lindsay Mitchell has been researching and commenting on welfare since 2001. Many of her articles have been published in mainstream media and she has appeared on radio,tv and before select committees discussing issues relating to welfare. Lindsay is also an artist who works under commission and exhibits at Wellington, New Zealand, galleries.